Two Sides To Every Story
by Wyndes
Summary: What was Jo thinking? This is her side of "That Kiss."   They are best read in order, IMO, with "That Kiss" first. This one contains spoilers for that one, but not so much vice versa.
1. Not an excuse

_A/N This story is second in a series. You can read it on its own, but both it and "That Kiss" will be more fun if you read "That Kiss" first._

I blamed Grace's memory device.

Post-traumatic stress, my ass.

I'd love to know how hallucinations are supposed to cure nightmares. Not that my nightmares are post-traumatic stress. No, no, they're just dreams. Okay, bad dreams.

Yeah, I'd been having them ever since we came back from 1947. Always the same, but always different, too. I'm alone in the middle of an enemy base, no intell, no team, no idea what the op is or what I'm doing there. Different places, though. Sometimes it's Eureka, back in 1947, but mostly it's a much-too-familiar desert. Sometimes jungle, although those feel more like jungle from memories of old Vietnam movies, not like any jungle I've ever seen. One notable time it was the Arctic, but I think that was 'cause S.A.R.A.H. was playing with the temperature in the bedroom.

Oh, yeah, S.A.R.A.H. knows. Carter and Zoe don't, I don't think. Or if they do, we don't talk about it. One time Carter kind of casually asked, "You okay?" and I muttered, "Bad night," and he said, "If you ever want to talk about it…" I gave him the look that says "I'd rather be dead and watching my body get eaten by maggots, thanks," and he never brought it up again. It's a good look.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work on an AI. And it's tough to keep secrets from someone who's continually monitoring your vital signs. It takes a lot to make me scream, so it's not as if I was waking the whole house, uh, bunker, but I was waking up myself, heart racing, adrenaline surging. Sometimes it took me hours to fall back asleep.

I know, ridiculous, right? Some people have real nightmares – monsters, long hallways, math tests. In my dreams, I was just alone. Pathetic.

But S.A.R.A.H. doesn't like it much. She's a worrier, S.A.R.A.H. is. I'm not sure how much she cared about me before I moved in, but within days, she was lecturing me on the food I ate, how much coffee I drank, and how much sleep a healthy person needs. I try not to let it annoy me. I know she means well. Besides, she's keeping my secret, so I owe her. I don't know what the DoD would think about the head of security of their top-secret facility having constant nightmares, but I don't want to find out.

Still, swearing S.A.R.A.H. to secrecy didn't stop her from continually experimenting, trying to find the magic solution that would end the dream without waking me up. Dropping the temperature, not so effective. Loud noises, ditto. Changing the light usually just woke me, and flickering the light was terrible. The dream that time…yeah, I don't even want to go there.

Soft noises could be good. Not so much nature sounds – those I'd just incorporate into the dream. Ever tried to infiltrate an enemy base while birds are chirping? High anxiety in that one, while I waited for the birds to give me away. But running water makes for a good cover sound even though it never stopped the dreaming.

Music, though – well, there was this one song, sort of a slow jazz number, that S.A.R.A.H. found that seemed to work. She played it for me once in the daytime, but I didn't recognize it. But I guess when she saw the signs that I was starting to dream, she'd bring the song up softly until my breathing smoothed out. By the time I moved into my new place, S.A.R.A.H. had gotten pretty good at keeping me asleep.

So, yeah, the first night there? It wasn't pretty.

That's not an excuse, you understand. Just an explanation.

An explanation for how I'd found myself lying on my living room floor, having just had mind-blowing sex with a guy who was not, emphatically not, despite all appearance to the contrary, the same guy I'd been in love with for a couple of years.


	2. Wired on coffee and despair

_A/N: Still rated T, I think, but I might have to add angst to the tags. Thanks for the reviews - the encouragement and the insight helped a ton. This wouldn't have gotten written without it! _

Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't need a therapist for my nightmares. I saw a therapist once. I hated it.

All right, maybe that's in retrospect. The therapist was Beverly, after all, and it's just a little creepy to know that I shared my life story with a power-hungry psychopath.

But she had all these theories, too, and they were annoying. All right, so I was the first-born child, and my dad wanted a boy, and okay, so maybe when my brothers were born, I got displaced and felt rejected, and then when my mother died…

Or maybe I just liked the military and how I lived my life had nothing to do with all that past crap! My dad's great, and it wasn't that he didn't love me just as much as he loved my brothers, he just didn't know what to do with a daughter.

But it's not always easy to be a woman in the military. You've got to prove yourself over and over again. And you've got to make choices, too, about how you want to play it. Some women grow thick skins, let the insults roll off their backs, and do whatever the hell they want to do. Sure, you can have sex – if you don't mind hearing the whispers… desert queen, ground sheet, clearing barrel, dorm hoe…the list is endless. No, that wasn't for me.

Maybe I'm oversensitive, but I went for being one of the guys instead. Only better. It worked out okay. Top of my class at West Point, the most marksmanship titles in Special Forces history and hey, head of security for GD. That's not nothing. Sure, in the early days guys still made crass comments, but kick a few butts and even the stupidest grunt learned to keep his mouth closed, at least when I was within earshot. And I have excellent hearing.

It killed any chance of romance, though. Sex, too, although for me, the two kind of went hand-in-hand. Some people are good at casual sex, but I was raised Catholic, including the whole Catholic school thing. Zane used to – no, never mind that. Some things don't need to be shared.

Anyway, I'm not used to the normal relationship thing. Maybe if I had been, losing him wouldn't have been so hard. But the way it happened wasn't exactly a normal break-up.

Still, if Grace's stupid memory device had done anything, it had shown me that I had been turning our relationship into something it wasn't, romanticizing it. Things with Zane and me? They weren't perfect. There was a reason I hesitated. All right, giving him back his ring was a disaster, but I would have been right to give that damn hallucination the ring.

Only then…he kissed me.

I kissed him back. It was automatic. It was – he was – I was – aw, hell. I don't even know how to say this. I'd kissed him so many times. It was so familiar. It was like – well, it was like breathing. You don't think about it, you just do it. Body needs oxygen, inhale, exhale. Your mind doesn't have anything to do with it. That was what those first five seconds were. And then I realized what I was doing and of course, I pulled back. But it was too late. Too late partially, because, yes, he'd figured out something, I don't know what. But also way too late for me.

All the feelings that I'd been trying to bury for the last few months just zoomed back to life. I loved him. I wanted him. My body craved his touch in a way that was surely completely unhealthy. Maybe I did need a therapist.

But that wasn't an option.

Which brings us to the moment two days later when my doorbell rang.

So you get the scene now, right? I'm exhausted, not having slept because every time I fell asleep I dreamt about stupid enemy encampments. By the time morning rolled around, I was more annoyed that I couldn't kick some dream ass than I was just tired, but by the end of the day, I was beat. Not quite so much so that I wanted to try going to sleep, though. I was pacing my new house, wired on coffee and despair, trying to figure out how I was going to make it through another night, when the doorbell rang.

Of course it was Zane.

He's so damn cute.

Those blue eyes, that messy hair, his grin… I hate his grin. Just the sight of it makes me melt inside until I want to give him anything, whatever he wants, just so he'll smile at me again. Damn him.

I glared at him, and he didn't grin. That was almost worse. And then I listened to the words he was saying. He'd called it quits with Zoe?

"I know we aren't friends, but I wouldn't ever intentionally hurt you." His eyes were dark, his words earnest. Earnest? Not a term I'd ever thought I'd apply to Zane. Either Zane. Earnest – it just wasn't him.

So, this? It wasn't me. I stepped forward and slid my hand around the back of his neck and pulled him down to me.

I don't know what I was thinking. Oh, all right, I wasn't thinking. That's obvious. But the moment my lips touched his… it was like a fire he'd started two days earlier had been slowly smoldering and then burst into flame. My body jolted alive, and I know you think that's hyperbole, but what can I say? That's how it felt. (And yes, West Point has a terrific English department. It's not one of the best schools in the country for nothing.)

I stumbled back into my place, not letting my lips leave his, and he followed me, and what my body was doing? It was insane. And it was so unlike me. It wasn't really like us, either. Not us as we had been, anyway.

Don't get me wrong, the sex had always been great. But after two years, it was familiar. Fun, absolutely, but familiar. And back in the early days – back when we were so hot for each other that we hid in closets to fool around and our dates in public places tended to get cut abruptly short – well, then it had also been awkward and strange and sometimes a little uncertain, the way sex is when it's new. This? This was some amazing combination of the two – the heat of the first time mixed with the ease of the long time.

He smelled right, he tasted right, his hands on me felt right – oh, so very right. And damn, he was good. He had my bra off me and his hands on me within the first three minutes with the grace of way, way too much practice. All right, yes, I'd already pulled his shirt off him, so I shouldn't criticize. And at that moment, I didn't care. I was flushed and trembling and the heat between us was like a furnace and all that mattered was feeling his warmth as close to me as possible, then closer.

I didn't start thinking again until after I'd shattered.

And then, well, then I really needed him to get out. To go as far away from me as possible. Because he wasn't Zane. Not the real Zane, not my Zane, not the Zane I loved. And my body might have shattered, but my heart was breaking.


	3. Cowardice always gets punished

I cried.

I don't know why people say that crying will make you feel better. That's such bull.

Crying makes me feel swollen, stuffed-up, and soggy, and I hate it, which is why I never do it. Never. But that night… At least when I finally fell asleep I didn't dream.

I can't say the same for the following nights.

If I'd thought it was bad when we first returned from 1947, it had just been because I had no idea what bad could really be. I couldn't even look at Zane when I saw him – some weird combination of excruciating embarrassment and desperate misery made my cheeks flush and my heart race at even a glimpse of his back.

Fortunately, he didn't push and I tried to be grateful for that. Really, I tried.

Carter, on the other hand – well, he's such a guy's guy that it's easy to forget how perceptive he is. I tried brushing off his concern, then snapping at him, and finally I resorted to hiding from him. Yes, I'm not proud of this, but that's how I wound up killing time in a stall in the women's room at GD.

Carter was headed down the hallway toward my office, so I'd ducked into the bathroom. I wasn't planning on coming out for at least half an hour – he'd get tired of looking for me eventually. If it was work-related, he'd use the phone, but it wouldn't be. I swear, he'd been taking lessons from S.A.R.A.H., and his daily checks on me weren't doing anything but driving me insane. More insane, I mean.

I didn't think anything of it when two women came in. Some women can't pee alone. I don't get it, but I always figured it was part of some secret girl training that I missed while I was busy on the shooting range.

I wouldn't have listened, but when the first said, "He made me peppermint tea!" her voice incredulous, I couldn't help myself. Peppermint tea? Was she - ? No, no, it was just my paranoia that made me think that everything was about Zane.

"I warned you." The second voice held a laugh, but it was familiar, too. "He's notorious." Who was that? I knew I recognized the voice, but I couldn't quite place it.

"Oh, and it was worth it. But still – I show up at his place wearing the hottest black lace teddy in my closet and all I got was a cup of peppermint tea."

"And the speech, too, right?"

I tried to take a careful peek through the crack in the stall door to find out who was talking, but all I could see was the back of a dark head. "The one about it was great, lots of fun, but he's doesn't do serious, and it wouldn't be fair to me?"

"That's the one." Damn, I knew who that was. It was the blonde from reproductive biology. I'd never actually spoken to her, but I'd overheard her flirting with Zane more than once. "Welcome to the club," she continued, cheerfully.

I frowned. The club?

"He's God's gift to women," the first woman still sounded a little gloomy as she sighed.

"Three times, it's the magic number." The blonde was checking her make-up. "He never hooks up with anyone with more than three times."

Oh, lovely. I put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming. If Dr. Baxter hadn't been tragically killed, they could have been talking about him – but he'd been dead for years. And the peppermint tea? They were talking about Zane. They had to be.

"No regrets, though. He's really good."

"Did he do that thing where he – " I didn't hear any more because I'd clamped my hands over my ears as I pressed my lips together. I wasn't going to listen, and I wasn't going to scream. It served me right for trying to hide. Cowardice always gets punished in the end.

I managed not to hear any more and they finally left the bathroom, but their words lingered in my brain.

There was a part of me that was jealous, not of him but of their ability to be so blasé about hooking up with him. Why couldn't I do that? My Zane was gone, and I thought after the hallucinations that I'd managed to let go of our relationship. So why did I have to be so devastated about having had casual sex with him?

Why couldn't I just take what I could get, and enjoy it?

Three times.

That meant I had two more, didn't it?

* * *

I was tapping my fingers on my steering wheel, trying to make up my mind to do what I wanted to do.

It was Friday night, a couple of weeks after the…well, you know.

He could have been out, but he wasn't. His lights were on and his bike was there.

He might have company. How humiliating would that be?

He might not have company.

I recognized this feeling. It was like pre-combat jitters, when the clock was ticking and the countdown was underway and any minute the word would come down that it was time to go. It was a little trickle of adrenaline, making my breathing a little too shallow, my heartbeat a little too fast.

_Decide_, I ordered myself. _Decide._

Oh, hell. The great thing about being Catholic is that you can go to confession and get forgiveness for your sins. This was going to be a big one, but if I got nothing out of it but a night free of nightmares, it'd be worth it.

Maybe.

All right, another mind-blowing orgasm wouldn't hurt either.

I was out of the car and walking up the walkway before I knew that I'd made the choice. Zane's place was a duplex, one of the Craftsman-style two-story kind. Outside stairs led up to his door. I jogged up them, lightly, trying not to think about how many times I'd been here before. It wasn't as bad as it could have been because we'd always spent more time at my place than his: he liked mess, I liked order. It was just another reason why we really didn't belong together, why letting him go was the right choice.

After, that is, trying to quench this fire that he'd started.

Three times.

This would be two.

My knock was firm, decisive. It took him a minute to answer, and when he did, he looked surprised, almost worried.

"Jo?" he started. I brushed past him, then turned to face him. He read in my face why I was there. I could see it, the moment when his expression changed, the doubt changing to something more like anticipation, his eyes going dark with desire, his lips parting just slightly.

I didn't wait for him to reach for me. I stepped closer, pressing against him, almost pushing him back against the door, both hands sliding up his chest to his face. He didn't pause. His mouth took mine with a kind of glad ferocity that sent my own desire spiraling higher and higher.

I don't think I said a word between the time I arrived and the time I left. None were needed.

That night, I slept like a baby. Not a real baby, of course – they never sleep. But the imaginary baby that the cliché conjures up. I slept like that baby, long and dreamlessly and with a kind of boneless relaxed contentment.


	4. Small favors

_A/N: ANGST! Seriously. I do think that this story will get more fun - at the very least, I expect it to end happily - but right at the moment, it's on the bleak side. _

A week later, I was at his door again.

For the serious player that I knew he was, he was spending an awful lot of Friday nights home alone. That was not a thought I wanted to examine too closely.

He answered my knock and this time he knew why I was there the moment he saw me. He reached out and curled his hand around my neck, fingers reaching into my hair, and we were kissing before I'd even made it inside, my head falling back under the warm pressure of his lips, my hands reaching for his waist to pull him closer to me.

The heat was so fast, so immediate. The rush wasn't just a teasing trickle in my belly, but a storm that pulsed through my veins. I moaned, letting my tongue play with his as our mouths opened to each other.

He scooped me up, hands on my ass, lifting me off the ground, and I gave a squeak of surprise, startled, before wrapping my legs around him and kissing him all the harder.

I didn't come up for air until he dropped me on his couch, and with a gasp, I pulled away, as his hands started working at my buttons. This was…different.

I'm not quite sure how to describe it, except maybe that in our first two, um, encounters, the ones in this timeline, he'd let me take the lead. He'd responded, sure, but I was the aggressor, I was the one pulling his clothes off, capturing his mouth, touching and stroking him before he reciprocated.

This time, he was controlling the action. And I hate to admit it, but it made me all the hotter.

I helped, shrugging out of my sleeves, and then shimmying out of my pants as he tried to slide them down my hips, and then there I was in my underwear – extremely good underwear, if I do say so myself – and he groaned, cupping one hand around my silk-clad breast and stroking the taut nipple with his thumb, before saying, hoarsely, "Wait. Right here."

Um, yeah. I wasn't going anywhere. But he disappeared, and then quickly returned, a foil-wrapped packet in hand. Right. Of course. I really should have thought of that. But then all thinking stopped as he took my mouth again, and within minutes, I was moaning under him as I tried to match his rhythm, arching up underneath him and trying to pull him closer, ever closer, as his heat burned me to my core.

When we'd both exploded, there was a pause, as the sweat cooled, and we tried to catch our breath. Then he pulled out of me, and I curled my fingers into my palms, letting the nails bite into the skin while I fought the urge to pull him back.

Three times.

This was it.

He disappeared again, into the bathroom, and then came back, and I knew I should get up, pull on my clothes and get out of there, as silently as I'd done the last time. But he slid over the back of the couch to lie beside me, pulling me next to him, one hand curling with a kind of wordless familiarity around my waist and I didn't leave. Instead I closed my eyes, fighting the urge to cry.

I didn't sleep. But my heartbeat slowed and my breathing evened out and for just a few moments, I tried to pretend. To pretend that I was back in the timeline that once was, the place where I'd loved him and he'd loved me, and we'd watched TV together and argued about whose turn it was to do the laundry and laughed over the latest Eureka disaster. And I'd gotten annoyed at him and he'd gotten annoyed at me, but always we circled back to one another.

I pretended that was where I was and oh, it hurt.

And maybe he felt the moment when my muscles tensed with the pain because he started stroking me, without words, but in a slow, comforting, peaceful pattern, not trying to arouse, but to soothe. And that, well, it was irresistible. I shifted to face him, and gently, ever so gently, touched my lips to his.

The sex that second time was slow, languorous, almost tentative, but I came just as hard in the end, reaching a peak that made me shudder and cry out and then bite my lip so hard it almost bled.

_Damn, damn, damn. _

I should have known that casual sex wasn't going to work for me. I was just being masochistic, torturing myself with tastes of what I could not have.

This time I was the first to move, pulling myself away from him and off the couch, looking around almost frantically for my clothes, and sighing with relief when I'd scrambled into the peach silk bra and panties.

I was pulling my shirt over my shoulders, fingers working the buttons hastily, when his voice interrupted me. "Jo," he started, and I glanced at him. He was watching me, his face serious, his eyes bluer than ever, the dark lashes shadowing them.

I shook my head at him, just a little, a minute gesture of rejection. There was supposed to be a speech. What was it? Good times, lots of fun, but he didn't do serious, right? I didn't want to hear it.

His mouth twisted, but he understood the gesture for what it was and didn't say anything else. His eyes stayed steady on me, though, as I pulled on my pants and looked around for my shoes. As I slipped the second one on, I looked back at him and tried to manage a smile. I couldn't quite do it, so I gave him a one-shouldered shrug instead.

"Jo," he tried again, his voice husky. He didn't seem to know what he wanted to say and then he sighed, and repeated the words he'd said once before, "I would never intentionally hurt you."

I closed my eyes, an involuntary reflex, and suddenly the image before me was him in the jail cell and his mocking, "Me marry you? In what universe?" as my throat constricted and I almost choked on the tears that were boiling up.

"Don't do that." He saw the expression and whether he understood it or not, he was on his feet and reaching for me within seconds, but I just shook my head, harder this time, much harder, and turned and was out the door.

And then I was in my car and on my way and if I didn't quite make it home before the tears started to overflow, well, I was close.

But hey, I didn't dream. Small favors, right?


	5. SARAH takes charge

_A/N: This chapter is a present for de Duchess. It was only going to be a couple of paragraphs, but…well, that's not the way it happened. All the rest of you are likely to be annoyed with me. Apologies! (I promise to deliver in the next chapter.)_

Carter lost patience a couple of days later. I'd been avoiding him for too long, I guess.

He called on Sunday and ordered me to the smart house. I protested – hey, in this timeline, he wasn't my boss, and I didn't have to do what he said – and he, the rat, made an annoyingly vague threat and hung up.

What did he mean if I didn't talk to him, I wouldn't like who I'd be talking to? I could think of some unpleasant possibilities – highest on my personal list being Zane, of course, but a close second being any of my relatives. And it would be just like a worried Carter to call my dad and say that he needed to check up on me.

That would be bad. My dad might not have known what to do with a daughter while I was growing up, but he's old-school Italian. If he got the idea that I was a mess because of a guy? Well, whether or not Zane survived, the scene would be the most embarrassing of my life.

So I gritted my teeth and went to the bunker. What the hell, I could smile nicely and pretend that everything was fine. All right, the stress and sleeplessness meant that I was exhausted and vaguely nauseous all the time, but for an hour or two, I could fake it.

But Carter's threat was worse than I'd imagined. S.A.R.A.H. had let him know that my records at GD showed that my Fitness for Duty evaluation date was coming up. It shouldn't have been – I should have had another year to go – but apparently this timeline Jo and I were on different schedules.

"This is not going to be good for any of us," I pointed out grimly. I'd always found the biannual recertification exam fun, awesome even, but that was before I had to worry about what I'd reveal on the psych section of it. If Dr. Pagani was still in charge, I was doomed. I'd be lucky if I got out of it without revealing everything. And she'd never approve me for duty, not in my current shape. "Fargo is going to have to override it. I had the exam just last year."

"He can't. With Mansfield breathing down his neck because of the D.E.D.? It's too risky. One slip-up, one suspicious act, and we're all busted." Carter shook his head.

Damn. Carter was right.

There was another solution, of course. One little number changed, and I'd be okay for another year. And by then, I'd either be fine to take the exam or I'd have already had my complete psychotic break and wouldn't need to worry about it.

Yes, all I needed was for someone to hack my records.

Lovely.

Carter had obviously been watching the expressions on my face. He'd almost finished setting his trap. "You can ask Zane to fix it for you," he suggested.

My glare was not one of my best. I was fighting the urge to vomit. Asking Zane for a favor? This kind of favor? After the last time I'd seen him? I'd rather monitor the Tesla High School science fair solo, and that place was Armageddon with acne.

"Or…" And with that, Carter added the bait. "S.A.R.A.H. can fix it for you."

"S.A.R.A.H.?" I asked suspiciously, my eyes narrowing. S.A.R.A.H. shouldn't be able to hack into GD computers.

"Yep," Carter confirmed. "She says she can change the date."

"It will be no problem, Jo," S.A.R.A.H.'s warm, but just slightly metallic voice echoed in the room. "I have access to the relevant GD files."

S.A.R.A.H. was getting just a little too HAL-like for my taste. Had the records always claimed that I needed an eval or had S.A.R.A.H already hacked them once? "All right, what's the deal here?" I asked skeptically. What were they up to?

Carter spread his hands wide, the innocent not-my-fault gesture. "You'd be the first to say that they have these things for a reason, right?"

I sighed. Carter knew me far too well. "And?"

"And you admit you wouldn't pass it." It wasn't a question.

"I'd pass the physical," I claimed, but rather than sounding defiant, I sounded sulky, even to myself. Carter raised his eyebrows and waited and I finally muttered, "Maybe." Damn if Carter wasn't making me feel like a delinquent teenager. This was ridiculous.

"So you've got two choices: you let Alison give you a complete physical and you agree to talk to the GD counselor about what's going on, what you can anyway – " Carter hadn't even finished and I was already shaking my head. No, that was not going to happen.

"Or," he continued firmly, "You let S.A.R.A.H. run some tests and you agree to follow her instructions to get healthier."

"S.A.R.A.H.'s running medical tests now?"

Carter shrugged, looking almost embarrassed.

"Dr. Blake has updated my system with a full suite of medical diagnostics and the equipment necessary to perform the complementary testing, as well as a complete medical database," S.A.R.A.H. reported. "She believes Sheriff Carter's blood pressure is too high and has asked me to –"

"Medical confidentiality, S.A.R.A.H!" Carter snapped at her.

Despite my own annoyance, I couldn't help smiling. "Alison and S.A.R.A.H. teaming up on you?"

"Yes," he grumbled. "But now I get to share the misery," he added, looking more cheerful.

I thought about it. I had been doing better when I was living at the bunker. All right, so S.A.R.A.H.'s nagging was sometimes annoying, but it wasn't as if I liked feeling crappy. And if she could help with the nightmares, and I could get some sleep, maybe everything else would seem more bearable.

"All right," I shrugged.

Carter looked wary. "That was almost too easy."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Anything to get you off my back." My words were flippant, edged with sarcasm, but Carter's eyes were worried, so I relented and with a gentle punch to his arm, said, "Thanks. I don't know what I'd do without you to step on my toes."

"We make a good team." He gave me back the words I'd said to him a few months earlier, and I just nodded, realizing how lucky I truly was. I might have lost Zane, but the friends I had left wouldn't let me lose myself.


	6. Psychobabble and resonance

_A/N: M, M, M, M! Reasonably euphemistic M, but consider yourself warned. _

* * *

"You're late." The words were an accusation.

Zane was dressed in nothing but his boxers, which fried my brain immediately, enough so that it took me a second to process his words. Automatically, I started to look at my watch. It was Friday night, but I'd lost track of the time while I was trying to decide what to do. To knock on his door or not to knock? To turn and leave and delay the inevitable, or to get it over with, take my cup of peppermint tea and listen to the infamous speech, and maybe finally find some closure?

Yes, closure.

Psychobabble, I know.

It was S.A.R.A.H.'s fault. I'd let her run her tests but when she started to talk to me about the results, I quickly interrupted, offering her a deal. I'd do exactly what she said if she promised not to talk about my health any more, ever, to me, or to anyone else. She'd resisted, but I'd insisted. Unfortunately, that was before I realized that her medical database included an extensive psychiatric section. Now, not only was I drinking a special nutritionally-balanced smoothie every day, she also wanted me to do yoga, listen to a meditation recording before I slept, and "find closure." Yeah, right.

But I'd promised.

He'd opened the door before I'd had a chance to decide, though. And I couldn't see my watch. He hadn't let me finish the gesture, looping his fingers around my wrist and tugging me inside, then towing me after him down the short hallway. What was he doing?

As we passed the kitchen, I saw the time on his microwave. It was after midnight. Damn. Had he said that I was late or that it was late? Should I apologize?

Zane answered the question by pulling me straight into his bedroom. "I've been waiting," his voice was husky as he drew me toward the unmade bed, and finally turned to face me, still holding my wrist. "Waiting…and imagining."

There was a feeling tugging at the corners of my lips, and I was starting to smile, just a little. The feeling wasn't the usual heat, but it was – well, I didn't think I was going to get my peppermint tea tonight.

And then the usual heat flared to life as Zane slid his fingers down my hand and firmly placed it on the center of his boxers before running his hands up my arms to my shoulders, and pulling me to him. He took my mouth with his, as my hand tightened around his warm hardness. This wasn't – I hadn't meant – he was supposed to…

But his tongue was searching, penetrating, and I couldn't remember what I'd been thinking.

His lips left mine and he nibbled his way across my cheek and down my neck, as he murmured, "I've been imagining how good it would feel to be inside you, how soft you'd feel around me, how hot and tight. And what it would be like to take you on a bed, my bed." His words were punctuated by breathy pauses as he kissed me senseless. "Trying to calculate our resonance frequency in my bed is the very best kind of physics problem." *

Physics problem? I was a physics problem? I tried to remember what a resonance frequency is – something about oscillation? And maybe I said something out loud, or maybe he just knew me, because as his hands slid under my sweater, pushing it up until I was forced to let him go so I could raise my arms above my head, he added, "It's the rate of energy flowing back and forth in an oscillating system."

He dropped the sweater on the ground and tugged at my hair tie until my hair fell down around us, and then his hands went straight to the clasp on my bra as his lips began kissing their way across my shoulders. "We're the oscillating system, Lupo, you and me. When I thrust inside you and we start to move together…" The bra joined the sweater on the floor. I slid my hands inside the waistband of his boxers, stroking his warm ass as I pushed them down and off, while he tried to undo the fastener on my pants, still brushing kisses down my chest.

"We start to move together?" I prompted in a whisper, my right hand sliding around his hip to touch him again, loving the satin-smooth feel of him. My thumb circled his tip as I felt heat pooling in my lower belly, dampness growing between my legs, but for the first time, he was having difficulties getting me out of my clothes.

"I hope we do," he muttered almost grimly, as he pulled back to look at the fastener. I whimpered, just a little – his kisses had reached the top of my breast and I'd been waiting for those clever lips to take my nipple, but to help him, I'd have to let go of him and that I just didn't want to do. I raked the nails of my left hand up his back in protest, reaching to push his head back down to my breast, wanting to feel his mouth on me, tugging and pulling and…

Damn it, what was wrong with these pants? Oh, right, an inner hook, the kind that has to slide sideways. Reluctantly, I released him so I could work the fastener myself, and finally, finally, my pants were sliding off, and not a moment too soon as Zane tumbled me sideways onto the bed, and landed next to me, and I was almost laughing as I reached for him, sliding my hands over his shoulders, pulling him to me.

We kissed until we were both breathless, and he was running his hands over my body, cupping my breast and then caressing down my waist until he finally touched my core and I almost came right then, just from the feel of his fingers in my warmth. And then he was pulling away and reaching for the bedside table and I thought that maybe I should mention my implant although given his proclivities I was probably just as glad that he was so careful about safe sex and come to think of it, how long ago had I had that implant put in, and then all time for thinking was past as he tugged me into a slightly better position, and then slid inside me and I felt myself closing around him, and oh, God, it felt good. He felt so good and he made me feel so good, and he was talking to me about resonant frequencies again, but I really wasn't listening.

He was moving, slowly, steadily, but I wanted faster and I arched under him, my hips trying to set a different rhythm. He laughed and he was still talking, although more breathless by the minute and his words – damn, but he was conversational tonight – talking about bridges and crystal and who the hell cared, if he would just move a little – ah, there, like that.

We moved together faster and what was he saying? His voice was a rough whisper, right next to my ear, and he seemed to have finally forgotten about physics, because this wasn't about science, this was about me and how I felt and every word made me hotter until, "What are you doing, Jo? Are you having sex or are you making love?" And that? That wasn't a question I wanted to answer, or even to think about, but then it didn't matter, because I was exploding and then a minute later so was he.

He collapsed on the bed next to me, muttering something about the destructive power of resonance, as he slid his hand along my side and pulled me a little closer to him, and I tucked myself into the curve of his arm, and tried to recover. I could still feel the quiver down the back of my legs, the warmth in my breasts, and oh, it felt good.

My eyes closed.

I should get up and go.

Really.

But he was so warm. Just one more minute.

Then I'd go.

_*God, I amuse myself. But I do think a physicist would think about these things! For more about resonance frequencies and sex, see physicsofsex . blogspot . com (no spaces, of course) _


	7. Maybe I'd give him CPR

_A/N: M, M, M, M! Again, euphemistic language, but this is pretty much pure sex scene._

_If, by any chance, you are reading this and you have not read "That Kiss" (or read it long enough ago that you don't really remember it), I would love to know if you find this chapter confusing. I'm trying to make the story work as a stand-alone, but this scene essentially takes place between Chapters Three and Four of that story, and I don't know whether I'm assuming too much knowledge. If I am, if you're confused, please let me know, so I can try to fix it._

* * *

He handcuffed me.

The bastard handcuffed me.

While I was sleeping next to him, he'd taken the cuffs that had been in my pants pocket, leftover from an incident at GD earlier in the day, and cuffed me to the headboard of his bed. He said we were going to play bondage games.

Bondage games!

He was so dead.

He'd given me a safe word. If I wanted him to unlock me, all I had to do was answer his question: was I having sex or making love?

I was going to kill him. Really I was.

Just as soon as I stopped coming.

I was still shuddering from the last one, that tingling sense of well-being running from head to toe, every part of my body just crazily relaxed, and he was already stroking his way up my stomach to tease my breasts.

"You are so dead," I said, breathless and panting. I'd said it already, so many times, but it was probably getting less convincing on every repetition. Even to myself my voice oozed with sexual well-being, with the languor of post-orgasmic bliss.

He nibbled on my earlobe and I moaned, arching under him. It felt so amazing.

And he was so damn scientific about it. Sometime, what felt like hours ago, between orgasms two and three, he'd informed me that because female genitalia can be so sensitive after climaxing that direct stimulation is painful, he'd be doing other things after each orgasm until I let him know that it was okay to touch.

Perfect, right? All I'd have to do is never say it's okay to touch, and game over. Forget his stupid question.

You try having someone who looks and tastes and smells and feels like the love of your life spend ten minutes nibbling his way along your leg, from toes to inner thigh, using tongue, teeth and lips, nipping and then soothing, kissing and tasting... and then pause and ask if it's okay to touch yet and see if you can say no. I'd only managed a "God, yes," myself.

But I was not – **not**! – answering his question.

I didn't even know what it meant! Having sex or making love? How the hell did I know? And what would my answer mean to him?

I shouldn't even be here. He was supposed to send me away with a cup of tea and a formulaic speech about how he didn't do serious. So if my answer used the L word, would I get the speech? Was that what he wanted to know? Whether it was safe to be having casual sex with me?

Zane – my Zane – might have finally used the word himself but getting there wasn't easy. And this Zane? As far as I knew, he still thought of me as something close to an enemy. Okay, an enemy that he would never intentionally hurt if I could trust his words, and I did, but still – not a lover, not really a friend.

"You're getting distracted, JoJo," he murmured, stroking a finger across my lips. "I can see your brain working. You going to answer my question yet?"

"No," I snapped, irritably tugging on the cuffs.

He promptly put one hand over my wrists, forcing them a little higher to ease the strain, and said firmly, "No tugging. I don't want you hurting yourself."

I closed my eyes. Damn him. The rush of warmth I felt at his words was almost an orgasm itself.

"Hmm…" He was looking at me with such intensity, I could feel it even with my eyes closed. Was he going to give up?

"Time to step up my game."

I guess not.

This was insane. I was going to kill him, really I was – but maybe I'd give him CPR after he was dead.

I could feel him get off the bed, but I was stubbornly keeping my eyes closed. Disengaging hadn't worked well so far, but maybe I just hadn't tried hard enough. S.A.R.A.H. had me listening to that stupid meditation tape – maybe I could meditate my way out of this.

Where the hell was he going?

No, no, I was going to meditate. Um, how did it start? Something about a feeling of relaxation spreading across my scalp – actually, this might be easier than usual, because I was definitely feeling pretty darn relaxed.

Except – he was back, and even though I was forcing my eyes to stay closed, every ounce of my attention was on his movements, the soft sound of rustling, a drawer opening – oh, yay. I kept my eyes closed, but a tiny smile was pulling at my lips.

Although his fingers and mouth had been very, very busy, he had so far entirely avoided actual intercourse while he'd had me cuffed. If that drawer opening meant what I thought it meant – well, I was going to be very happy about that. I really, really wanted him inside me.

And it'd be the end of his little game. I'm sure someone in Eureka knows the scientific reason why guys fall asleep after orgasm, but I didn't need to know the science: I knew Zane. He'd already come once; a second time and he'd want to sleep. And he'd unlock me first.

Shit! My eyes flew open but it was too late, he was wrapping some kind of scarf around my head and I couldn't see anything. "What the hell?"

"Just a blindfold," he answered soothingly. "It'll be more fun for you if you don't know what's coming."

"More fun for me?" I was skeptical.

"More fun for both of us," he responded and I could hear the laugh in his voice.

I frowned. Where was he going with this?

And then – okay, I'm embarrassed as hell to admit it – I screamed. What can I say? You would have screamed, too. Out of nowhere was this intense feeling, a shock half pain, half pleasure.

He laughed. The asshole. I'm not sure he's ever been closer to death than he was at that moment. Yes, I was handcuffed and blindfolded, but I could still have broken his neck.

He collapsed next to me on the bed, still laughing, one hand over my mouth. "I have neighbors, JoJo," he protested. "If they call the cops, Andy or Carter will come to investigate. Don't scream."

"What the hell was that?" I gasped.

"Just ice." I could feel the vibrations from his body as he tried to bring his laughter under control.

"In my belly button? What the hell?"

"I should have warned you." He was trying to sound contrite and failing completely.

"I thought you were going to – damn it, I want you inside me." If he had failed to sound contrite, I was failing to not sound plaintive.

"Mmm, I want that, too," he said, sounding dreamy. "God, so much."

Lying next to me on the bed, he started tracing a light path across my body with the ice cube while he told me in graphic detail how much he wanted to be inside me and how good it would feel and what he would be doing when he was and what he'd be thinking, and for me, blindfolded, handcuffed, cold water trickling against my skin, the sound of his voice was the most erotic thing I'd ever experienced, until finally I whimpered with frustration and said, "Well, fuck me, damn it."

"Yeah, not while I have you handcuffed," he said, dreaminess gone and sounding ridiculously cheerful, as he sat up and moved to position himself astride me.

"What?" I protested.

"That would be creepy," he said, tracing the ice cube across my lips, and then following the path with his warm tongue.

I moaned involuntarily, but then said, again, "What?" and I was almost laughing.

"I wouldn't feel right about it," he said, sounding quite serious, but although I was blindfolded, I could feel him over me, straddling me. I arched up, pressing my body against his, and oh, yes, he was more than ready. I shifted, rubbing against him, trying to create a rhythm, trying to capture him…

"None of that," he said hastily, a note of almost panic in his voice as he pushed my hip, forcing me down to the bed and then shifting again, farther down, across my legs, so that I could feel him, but not touch him with my body.

I bit my lip to hold back the scream.

I was going to kill him.

But maybe I ought to start thinking about my answer to his question.

If only I knew what the damn thing meant.


	8. Bargains with God

_A/N: Much, much thanks to leogal063 for giving me the clue I needed to figure out where I was going. It's not quite the direction you suggested, but your thoughts really helped!_

_Also, I have not decided yet whether the next scene starts from here or skips ahead. If you have an opinion, feel free to share. (Obviously, continuing from here = another sex scene, but are they getting boring? And no promises that it would include Zane in the handcuffs - I'm not sure that's how it plays out.) _

He'd left me, still handcuffed to his bed.

He was so dead.

After I cooled off a little, I started considering my options.

I did have them.

I was still blindfolded, but that was nothing. It wasn't tight and my arms were right next to my face: I could work the scarf off in half a minute, if I decided I wanted to.

But the handcuffs were more of a problem.

The simplest option, of course, was to scream loud and long enough that his neighbors would call the Sheriff's office. Go ahead, guess how long I considered that idea. Yep, not gonna happen any time this century.

Next up: I could break the headboard. It was just a metal frame, and the metal was lightweight. I could use the strength in my legs to force the headboard away from the bedframe and see where that got me, or I could tighten and wind the chain of the handcuffs along the bar and then pull and see what snapped first – my guess was that it would be the join of one bar to the next, letting me slip out, although with the cuffs still on. Once out, it'd be easy to find something that would let me pick the lock – a paperclip or some electric wire would work.

I could probably work my way out of the cuffs, too, although maybe not without doing some damage. My hands are small and blood would work as a lubricant if I really, really wanted to just force myself free. That seemed a little extreme.

After all, there was always the option of just answering the damn question.

And the option of answering it honestly, instead of trying to figure out what he wanted from it and why.

I bit my lip.

It was a ridiculous question, really. Where were the other options? I didn't want A or B, I wanted C – breaking my heart over a romantic fantasy. Or how about D – pretending to be in a different timeline? E would have to be finding closure because that's what I was supposed to be doing, although it didn't seem to be working as advertised.

Was there an F? Hell, yes. F was "I don't fucking know," yelled at full volume, because that was how I felt about it.

But then I sighed.

I should at least stop lying to myself.

I didn't know what the honest answer would mean to him, to us, to whatever this situation was, but of course I was making love.

How could I not be? I loved the guy.

He wasn't what I thought I wanted, what I thought I ought to want. An anti-establishment, super-genius, atheist felon? Not exactly my dream man. But that didn't stop me from wanting him exactly as he was. When he was being a snarky annoying jerk, I'd want to kick his ass, and then he'd grin at me and I'd want to jump him instead. But it wasn't just sex – we'd been good together. We'd had fun together. We'd played and fought and laughed and teased and despite all the bad – and there was bad – I had loved him.

And I still did.

I thought about the bad for a minute – the times he made me feel stupid, the times his scientific logic annoyed me, the times when his critical attitude flat-out pissed me off (nobody's perfect, ha), the times that we were just out-of-sync. But those weren't the worst moments. The worst …

Oh, God.

"Wouldn't a few dozen Hail Marys have been good enough?" I snapped. "My Aunt Lucia would have done the rosary fifty times to see me married!"

All right, yes, I'd lost it. I was yelling at God. I'd known that psychotic break was on the way.

But I'd finally realized why I'd hesitated when Zane asked me to marry him. And it didn't have anything to do with him making me feel stupid or him being a slob or even his rather cavalier attitude toward the law that I'd dedicated my life to.

It was because I was scared.

Scared of losing him.

Between ice crystals, electric viruses, and science experiments going supernova, I'd come so close so many times already. When he asked me to marry him, I froze because I knew somehow, how much worse it would be to lose him once we were married.

And, oh, of course, that was because I'd seen my father lose my mother and knew what it had done to him. I was terrified of having the same experience. Wow, being handcuffed and blindfolded was really great for therapeutic insight. If Beverly had realized…what a scary thought, she would have had half the town in cuffs.

But God had punished me for my cowardice. Swiftly and effectively. I was too scared of losing Zane to take the risk? Twelve hours later, and he was gone.

And the worst moment of our relationship – worse than when he'd brushed me off after I'd put myself out there, worse than when he came back from the arctic and was cold and distant – by far the worst was when he'd said, "Me marry you? In what universe?"

I'd never really believed in a sadistic God before.

But was he giving me a second chance? Zane wasn't dead. He wasn't the same – the Zane who'd spent the past six hours teasing me was really, truly, positively, definitely, absolutely not the Zane I'd been sleeping with six months ago. But he was an awful lot like him.

And the changes…all right, it didn't make me happy to know that my boyfriend had slept with a hell of a lot more women in this timeline. But I didn't necessarily mind the end result. This Zane had a creative streak that…well… I guess all I'm saying is that maybe finding my old Catholic school uniform would have been a good idea, after all.

I heard noise. It sounded like Zane coming up the stairs. I wasn't ready. I needed time to do some more thinking – and some more yelling at God, and maybe a little bargaining, too.

They say that being blind improves your senses: maybe being blindfolded does the same, because I could swear I smelled coffee before Zane even entered the room.* Or maybe that was just wishful thinking. I'd been awake all night, after all. Some coffee was just what I needed.

I heard him cross to the bed and then a slight bump that must have meant that he was taking his shoes off. And then, without saying anything, without taking anything else off, he put one knee on the bed and straddled me, brushing my bare skin with his denim-clad legs, and resting a little of his weight on my hips, and just like that, I went from cooled off and thoughtful to hotter than hell.

Damn it.

I knew it was him – it sounded like him, it smelled like him, and who else would it be? But something about not being able to see him and having him in clothes while I was bare-ass naked and handcuffed hit an erotic trigger I'd never known I had, and wasn't sure I was ready to admit to. I took a deep breath. "Is that coffee?" My voice was remarkably even considering how badly I wanted to move under him.

He laughed, and I felt his fingers on the scarf, and then blinked up at him as he dropped it to the ground.

"Coffee…and cinnamon rolls." He needed a shave. And he was wearing his blue t-shirt, the one with all the bugs on it that he loved so much, the one that made his eyes as blue as sapphires, only a lot less rocky and glittery and crystalline.** Okay, maybe more blue like the sky.

He put something to my mouth and I opened and took it automatically – cinnamon roll. I chewed, but I didn't want the roll, I wanted him, and when he put another piece in my mouth and stroked his thumb along my lips, I couldn't stop myself from gasping.

This was crazy. I should be exhausted. My body should have overloaded hours ago, I should be completely pleasured out. But instead I wanted to feel him on top of me, pressed up against me, inside me, not playing with me but as lost in me as I was lost in him.

"Also, extra icing. But that's not for the cinnamon rolls, JoJo. It's for you." He grinned at me, eyes crinkling, as he licked icing off his finger. Oh, my God. He was insane. Really, insane. How much did he think I could take?

He painted me with icing, then licked it off my breast, and I couldn't hold back, I pushed my hips up against him, trying to feel him, trying to set a rhythm that he would have to follow, but he, damn him, just sat up again and picked up his coffee.

"Or you can answer my question," Zane suggested and his voice wasn't teasing.

I turned my head away. He was serious about this stupid question. But I needed more time. I needed to make my bargain with God.

All right, God, here it was - if I wasn't a coward and if I prayed every day, Hail Mary's every single, solitary day, and if I wasn't needy or desperate or clingy or defensive, if I just let things happen as they happened and let Zane take the lead, God would let this Zane fall in love with me the way the old Zane had. Now I needed an answer – really quickly, please. Did we have a deal?

No answer, but Zane leaned down and began kissing me, his lips gentle, his tongue tracing my lips, and, still praying, I kissed him back, opening my mouth to him and trying to take his, all the passion and love I felt for him pouring out of me, while I desperately begged God to not let me lose him, not now, not ever, never again, and God didn't answer but Zane pulled away, and whispered, breathless, "Answer my question, Jo. Are you having sex or making love?"

"Damn you, damn you, damn you," I said and you know, I'm not sure who I was swearing at, whether it was the sadistic God who'd somehow put me in this position or whether it was Zane for torturing me, and then I admitted the truth, "Making love."

_* Pregnancy joke, there. Right around 4 weeks after conception, many pregnant women develop a heightened sense of smell. That's your science fact for this chapter. (It's not Eureka without at least a little random science!)_

_** Private joke, not just a horrible cliché. Sorry, ZeroGain (although I'm laughing imagining your look of pain!) _


	9. Ten seconds

I think my brain shut off for a second because I was so terrified, but then, "Me, too, Josefina. Me, too," Zane said and I knew that God was giving me my chance.

He probably wouldn't have approved of what I did with it, but hey, we hadn't made any deals about sex, and I really, really needed to feel Zane inside me.

Zane was unlocking the cuffs, leaning over me. I could feel his warmth and the soft cotton of his shirt brushing against my skin, and I could smell laundry detergent and soap and guy, and I wanted to turn my head and take his mouth, but then the cuffs were dropping off and he was moving back, shifting away from me. He was looking at me, and I felt weirdly shy suddenly, considering what we'd been doing for the past hours.

And what did it mean? What he'd just said? What was he saying?

Okay, no, I wasn't going to think about that right now. I wasn't going to do that girl thing and parse every syllable, every inflection – I was just going to live in the moment for the moment. Thinking was for later.

He moved off me and away, as I rubbed my wrists and sat up, cuffs in hand. "There's a Vinspresso in the kitchen for you."

Ha. Like I was going to go to the kitchen? Not even for the best cup of coffee in the world, although of course a Vinspresso came close. I picked up the coffee nearer me and took a giant gulp. Bleck. That tasted disgusting. * What had Zane done to it?

I looked back at him. "That's for later."

He'd cuffed me while I was asleep – it was the only way he could have done it. But I didn't expect I'd have trouble cuffing him while he was awake. Still, he liked that shirt, and I wanted to feel all of him against me. "Clothes off."

He looked confused.

"It's my turn." I held the cuffs up. "And I could rip your clothes off after I cuff you, but that t-shirt's one of your favorites. So…clothes off."

"Oh, JoJo." He closed his eyes and a look of almost pain crossed his face, before he opened them again and said, wryly, "The ease with which you say that is almost as disturbing as it is hot. But after this night? I'm going to be lucky if I last ten seconds, and if you cuff me – all bets are off."

I looked at him, eyes narrowed. And then I opened my hand and let the cuffs drop to the floor as I said, "Then ten seconds it is. Let's make them good ones."

And then we were both in a mad scramble, him to get his clothes off, me to get that bedside drawer open and a condom out, because okay, maybe I shouldn't cuff him, but faster, faster was better, and his safe sex obsession** – well, it was a good thing, not a bad, and we could talk about it in more detail later, but meanwhile – and then I was ripping the packet open and letting the condom drop into my hand and then carefully, slowly, sliding it over him and down, and he groaned.

And that feeling of power? It was a rush, an oxytocin*** high as good as any I'd ever had. And then he was over me, but that wasn't what I wanted, not right now. So I pushed, until he flipped, and I was astride him for a change. He was biting his lip, brow furrowed, eyes closed, and I could see that he was holding on, trying to resist, fighting the need to let go.

So I didn't tease.

I found him and I put him inside me and I slid down on top of him and then I held very, very still.

Okay, so I didn't tease much.

"Jo," his voice was desperate, a growl of almost pain.

"Ten seconds," I whispered to him, holding as still as I could while I counted down. He groaned.

And then the ten seconds were up and I leaned down to him and took his mouth, tongue searching, while I stroked his chest with my hands, fingers wide, and I compressed around him, as tight a grasp as I was capable of, and up, down, yep, ten seconds was it, he was exploding inside me, and the feeling was – well, it wasn't an orgasm, that hadn't been enough for my body to let go, but it was the next best thing.

Knowing that I could do that to him? It was enough. More than enough.

I collapsed next to him, my body as boneless as his, and chuckled into the hollow of his neck, while I let my hand explore, stroking his unshaven cheek and then down his neck and along his side. A minute, two, three passed silently.

"Good thing you didn't say twenty seconds," I murmured to him.

"Mmm…" I could hear it in his voice, he was half asleep already.

"What are you thinking?" I asked. The words were an impulse, and almost as soon as they escaped, I regretted them. Stupid question. But I couldn't stop thinking. What had his question meant? What had he meant when he said, "me, too?"

But he answered.

"You're complicated," he mumbled. "I hate complicated. But you…" his voice trailed off as one hand curled up around me, and he turned into me, pulling me closer against him. Even the discomfort of the latex still on him wasn't going to keep him awake.

Complicated? Yeah, that was for sure.

But he wanted simple?

Okay.

I could do that.

* * *

_A/N: Sorry for all the preachy science notes! I think my puritan soul is experiencing existential guilt about what I'm writing. Feel free to skip the italic text, LOL._

_* I expect you can guess this, but yes, that was another little pregnancy joke. And your science fact for the day: morning sickness is most likely a defense mechanism against toxins. Foods often have trace amounts of bad-for-you substances that adult bodies can tolerate, and developing fetuses (or small children) cannot. For example, broccoli contains allyl isothiocyanate which seems to be good for us, but only in small doses, and it's probably not so good for fetuses (and maybe not so good for little people). So when a child in your life complains about broccoli, give him a nice orange or apple instead – he might be correctly detecting that the broccoli contains too much toxin for his system! _

_**Safe sex = very romantic! _

_***Oxytocin is NOT OxyContin, aka oxycodone, aka hillbilly heroin, aka an illegal and dangerous drug. It's the hormone that women produce during birth and also during orgasm, sometimes referred to as the love hormone. _


	10. Simple? Ha

Simple was harder than it looked.

Simple was a text message that read "2nt?" followed by a late-night visit. Complicated was trying to decide whether to warn him about the chicken when he took me to a nice restaurant outside Eureka – the same restaurant that had given him food poisoning in the old timeline.

Simple was holding hands in a darkened movie theater. Complicated was realizing that I knew all of his favorite movies and he knew none of mine.

Simple was catching a quick bite at Café Diem. Complicated was how I felt about having other people see us together. I didn't want to answer questions, to pretend to be having a casual flirtation, or to see the blonde from reproductive biology and her dark-haired friend speculating about how soon I'd be a member of their club.

Simple was playing laser tag. Complicated was coming out of the bathroom afterwards, having just showered, and seeing him quickly close his smartphone.

"Who were you calling?" I asked casually, squeezing dry my hair, as I crossed to the dresser.

"No one." His reply was too fast, too abrupt, and I paused before pulling open the drawer. I'm good at recognizing a lie, and that wasn't quite a lie. Which meant what?

Yes, complicated was wondering about the other women in his life and trying my damnedest not to let my jealousy and insecurity show.

Simple was that I knew him. Complicated was that I only almost knew him.

Simple was that I loved him and wanted him. Complicated was trying to hide the first until he was ready for it, while still enjoying the second.

Simple was working out together. Complicated was when he started treating me like a girl. What the hell was that about?

I wanted to keep things simple, really I did.

And I was trying hard to keep my bargain with God, too. I'd just let things happen as they happened, let Zane take the lead…but I didn't think he'd lead his way into being a patronizing asshole.

I didn't know what the hell was wrong with him.

And then he blew up his lab.

Yes, Zane. With liquid nitrogen of all the stupid things. It's not even explosive.

The day hadn't started out well. I'd been feeling a lot better, but S.A.R.A.H. was still insisting that I come by the bunker every morning for one of her special smoothies. I suspected that she might just be a little lonely with Carter spending so much time at Allison's but surely Andy ought to be enough for her. She didn't need me to visit every single day.

"S.A.R.A.H., I really don't think I need these smoothies anymore," I tried, glancing at my watch. I didn't punch a time-clock as head of security, but that didn't mean I liked being late to work. It wasn't that dreams were keeping me up: I was just finding it tough to get out of bed in the morning, even on the nights that I wasn't with Zane. I'd rather have an extra fifteen minutes to sleep than come by the bunker every morning.

"We had a deal, Jo," S.A.R.A.H. responded. "This smoothie is a perfect supplement for you, precisely balanced for your current daily nutritional needs."

"But I'm feeling a lot better."

"If you wish to modify our agreement, does that mean that I am now allowed to discuss your health?" S.A.R.A.H. almost sounded eager, and I sighed.

"All right, fine, I'll drink the smoothie." With a grimace, I chugged it down and headed out, shaking my head. I couldn't imagine how Carter was coping, living with S.A.R.A.H. now that she had all these medical upgrades. She probably had him on a diet of pure organic veggies and brown rice.

I didn't even make it to my office before people were tossing one minor crisis after another at me. It was evaluation season, which meant that the GD scientists were all going crazy. Crazier, I mean. No one wanted to lose funding for their research but some of the risks they took – trying out untested solutions, experimenting on themselves in lieu of valid test subjects, failing to follow safety protocols – were just maddening. I'd already broken up a fight between two scientists accusing one another of sabotage, and put an entire chunk of Section 12 into quarantine because some plant experiment gone mad had turned it into a jungle when Fargo came rushing up.

One look and I knew I didn't want to hear what he had to say. "You won't believe this," he whispered, grabbing my arm and pulling me to a stop. "The DoD is sending out a forensic accountant. Apparently they've discovered some kind of fiscal irregularities in the accounting system and they're investigating."

Aw, hell. That was bad. Not that I was expected to be an accountant, but if someone was embezzling from GD it was yet another security violation. I sighed. And then the ground shook just slightly, the building alarm started blaring, my phone alert went off, Fargo's phone started ringing, and the day went from bad to worse.

I prayed the whole way to Zane's lab. When we got there, and he was standing outside, looking annoyed but perfectly healthy, I wanted to kick him.

When he said, absently, barely paying attention as he interrupted his argument with the scientist from the lab next to his, "Hey, sweetheart," I wanted to kill him. How was I supposed to maintain any authority at GD if the rebel bad-boy was calling me sweetheart? All right, so yes, there was also a little part of me that was delighted, but I suppressed it firmly. This was work, after all.

Turned out that somehow the pressure-relief valves on the liquid nitrogen tanks he was using for his current project had gotten blocked. Under pressure, the tanks exploded. And no, these weren't some nice tiny tanks, like a hydrogen tank you'd use for making balloons – they were 50 liter tanks so the mess was substantial. But no one was hurt, and within a couple hours, it seemed as if we'd almost cleaned it up.

Zane and Fargo were arguing in the hallway about whether Zane's project was going to work at all – something about superconductors and freezing points and I didn't honestly care – when I went into the neighboring lab to see if there was any damage that we hadn't noticed. Hmm. What an odd…was I dizzy?

And then I woke up. I recognized his smell first, and turned my head sleepily into his shirt. And then I realized that he was carrying me.

Carrying me.

And hell, we were in GD. Those were GD hallways around us.

Oh, this was just going to kill my chances of ever being taken seriously at my job – being carried through the halls of GD by anyone at all would have been bad, but by Zane? I started wiggling, and he just tightened his grasp. "Zane, I'm fine."

"Alison, we need you." Zane's voice was far more worried than the situation warranted as he rushed me into the infirmary. There was nothing wrong with me. Okay, I'd passed out, but whatever had caused it was clearly gone.

"I'm fine. Your stupid experiment just messed with my head," I said, crankily. I was a hell of a lot more worried about who might have seen me being carried through the hallways then I was about whatever had happened to knock me out. I was fine.

And what the hell was going on with Zane? He'd been refusing to spar with me for weeks and this? It was just like when we'd been working out together the other day. I'd gotten dizzy for two seconds and he'd acted like I'd had a heart attack. Let me get you more water, let me get you something to eat, let me take you upstairs – um, how about you act like I'm a grown-up instead? I'd gotten dizzy for a minute, not exactly a big deal.

"She passed out from nitrogen asphyxiation. Can you check her out?"

Alison was right there, doing her Alison-doctor thing. I let her take my hands and I opened my mouth for her obediently and inwardly I was fuming. Zane and Alison were talking and I didn't care what they were saying: I was going to have to have this out with Zane. I'd been trying to do simple, really I had, but this just wasn't going to work for me.

"Any headache, dizziness, nausea?" Alison asked.

I shook my head. "I'm okay, really," I told her. This was just ridiculous.

Alison nodded, agreeing. "I think you probably are. There's no sign of cyanosis."

"Terrific, then I can get back to work." I'd fight with Zane tonight. It'd be our first real relationship fight in this timeline, and I was almost – well, all right, I admit it, I was almost looking forward to it. But I wasn't some porcelain doll that he had to take care off. It was damn creepy, the way he was acting.

"Uh, no." Zane put a hand out, stopping me from hopping off the bed. I glared at him. Really? Did we need to have this out here and now?

"What?" I snapped. "Your screw-up has cost me half the day and I have work to do."

He glared back at me, and for a minute I felt uncertain. That was not a sweet, lover-ly, over-protective look. That was – something else. Something more like the real Zane. What was going on?

"Can you check the baby, too, please?" he said, and I could see the effort that 'please' took even as his words dropped into my brain like bullets hitting a target. He was trying hard to be polite while he felt pissed as hell, and he felt so pissed because…"I don't know whether a scan would show damage, but oxygen deprivation can't be good for fetal development."

Fetal development?

Fetal…development?

"What? I'm not stupid. If you didn't want the baby, you should have done something about it. Taking chances with it at this stage is just irresponsible."

Baby.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my fucking God.


	11. Like a small human being

_A/N: I suppose if you've made it this far you're in tune to the M rating, but Jo under pressure apparently starts swearing a lot. We're now M for language as well as, um, descriptiveness. _

My breath was shallow, my heart was racing. If I didn't know better, I'd think I was on the verge of a panic attack.

But I don't do panic, so that wasn't possible.

Except – what had just happened?

Had I really heard…fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

I looked at Zane and then quickly looked away. He was frowning, his brows drawn down over his blue eyes, his expression – well, he still looked mostly annoyed, but there was something else there, too. But I didn't have time to figure that out, I had to figure this out.

I'd said something to Alison and she'd said something back but really, the blood rushing through my head was so loud that it drowned out everything except my sense of absolute panic. A baby?

That – I couldn't do that. It wasn't that I didn't want kids. Of course, I did. Someday. Like, um, after I'd gotten married. Then. Then I could have kids. But now?

And Zane was so careful. It made no sense. I was pretty cavalier about protection because I had an implant and I was used to being in a committed, monogamous – almost automatically, I was running my hand over the spot in my arm where I ought to be able to feel the implant. Hell, where was that little lump? Oh, God, what had I done?

Alison was moving in front of me, with a needle, and without thinking, I held my arm out to her and let her do her thing while my brain raced in circles.

Baby.

Baby. Like small human being. Like the kind that cried and fussed and needed round-the-clock care. I'd never even gotten a pet because it seemed so unfair to leave it alone all the time.

Baby.

"I'm really sorry." Zane's words broke into my panic and I couldn't help the flinch. Fuck.

Simple. I'd promised simple. He didn't want complicated. And this – and it was my fault…okay, sure, it takes two, but he was so careful and I – I hadn't paid any attention at all. When –?

"I don't mean about – I meant about the nitrogen. I'm sorry about the explosion and that…"

I should apologize to him, too. This wasn't what he'd had in mind. But – oh, hell. How do you apologize for something like this? I mean this was – he might think – oh, God. It wouldn't be unreasonable for him to suggest an abortion. In this timeline, we were barely together. We were sleeping together, yeah, but he didn't want complicated and this was as complicated as it gets. But abortion – that just wasn't possible. Not for me. If I was pregnant…well, if I was pregnant, then I was having a baby.

A baby.

A little human being, half Zane Donovan and half Jo Lupo.

That thought was all I needed to fall in love.

God, I hoped the baby had his eyes. I loved his eyes. Not his brain, though, that would be way too hard. A nice normal kid with his grin and maybe my hair, because his hair was great, but not if I had to keep it brushed, I'd much rather try to keep hair like mine under control…

I looked up as Zane put his hands on either side of me, leaning in and saying, "Come on, JoJo, look at me. Tell me what you're thinking."

Well. No. I wasn't going to say exactly what I was thinking, not right then. My questions first. "How long have you thought I was pregnant?"

My eyes narrowed as I watched him consider whether to lie. I would kick his ass if he did. "Since the day we played laser tag."

That was truth and – my mouth dropped open. That was a month ago. A month! He'd known for weeks.

"Is that why you've been being so damn weird?" I burst out. Holy shit, I wanted to kill him. He'd been refusing to spar with me when we worked out as if it was dangerous and I'd been annoyed that he didn't trust me not to hurt him and the whole time – he'd been worried about hurting me? As if!

I punched his shoulder and I didn't hold back.

"I'm not the one who's been being weird," he complained, reeling back and clutching his shoulder. I glared at him. It wasn't fucking weird to insist on carrying the groceries? It wasn't weird to bring me warm milk to drink at night? It wasn't weird to hover over me as if I was breakable when we were out together? Fuck, yes, all those things were weird. And why had I not figured something out? I'd been so worried about keeping things simple for him, I'd totally missed what he was doing.

"Okay, yeah, maybe," he agreed. "But I thought you knew. I didn't think you could be that—that you could not notice."

Oh, hell, I was going to kick his ass anyway. "That I could be that stupid, you mean?" He was dead. Dead man walking. I just needed to decide how to get rid of the body.

"Maybe I'm wrong," he defended himself, and my rage collapsed.

He wasn't wrong. And I was stupid. How could I have missed it? How could I have not put the pieces together? Yes, contraceptive implants made for complacency but for fuck's sake, I didn't have the faintest idea when I'd last gotten my period, I'd been nauseous and tender for weeks, I'd gained weight…my level of oblivious was profound.

I shook my head. "I couldn't zip up my pants this morning." I looked at him, at his worried face, so beautiful to me. How could I say this? It was so unfair to him. We'd never even had these conversations. I put my hand on my stomach, spreading the fingers out. And yet – anything else would be so unfair to the little Donovan-Lupo peacefully growing inside me.

"I just thought – I don't know what I thought. I guess I didn't think. Zane, I—" I looked away from him. How could he not hate me for this? But what else could I do? I had wanted to be simple, to make this relationship simple for him until he was ready for more, and now, now it was irretrievably complicated.

He put his finger on my mouth and I looked back at him, startled, while he spoke. "Wait, wait." What was he saying? I listened, trying to make sense of his words, but paying almost more attention to the look in his eyes than to the sounds coming from his mouth, until finally, I started to smile. His finger was still holding my lips closed, so I opened my mouth, turned my head, and nipped, not trying to be gentle.

"Ow!" He pulled his hand back.

"I'm Catholic, you idiot." I wasn't going to kill him, not anymore. I didn't know how this was going to play out but I wouldn't be looking for a spot to get rid of his body anytime soon.

"You believe that?"

I rolled my eyes. Well, I could still change my mind. Hadn't we had this conversation before? Alison was back and she smiled at me, a little ruefully, as she said gently, "This Zane, Jo?"

Right. Not this Zane. In fact – this Zane and I had probably never talked about religion. Something about jumping straight into, well, a more experimental sort of sexual relationship left a lot less time for those getting-to-know-one-another relationship conversations. I sighed. "It's a baby, not a decision, Zane, and if –" I looked at Alison, and she nodded, not able to hide her smile. Well, Alison liked babies and she'd done this herself, so it made sense that she was okay with the idea. Me? The panic was only a very little way away…"Yeah, so. We're having a baby."

Oh my God. I couldn't believe those words had come out of my mouth.

"Does this mean I can kiss you in public now?"

What?

I mean, really? That was what he had to say about this? I was talking about a new human being coming into existence, joining the universe, and he wanted to know if he could kiss me?

"Um, sure," I said.

And then he kissed me and in his kiss he said so much, not with words, no, but with warmth and passion and yes, love. And I knew that simple or not, he was with me. We still had a lot to talk about – a lot to talk about! – but complicated didn't matter.

We were having a baby.

_A/N: Some endings are less like endings than others. I am calling this story complete here, but mostly because that forensic accountant is on her way and…well, she feels like a separate plotline in the same universe. I'm almost grateful that stupid Syfy is giving me another couple of months to play (not that I wouldn't be happier if they gave us back the real thing tomorrow, but I'm going to try to view those months as a blessing not a curse.) So this is done, but my next story will pick up around here (no idea whose pov it'll be though. First person has been an interesting experiment, but I think I'm ready to take back the flexibility of third-person limited). _

_Thank you so much for reading and especially thank you so much to those who have reviewed. I had a high school creative writing teacher who marked up my short story with red lines galore and "cliché, cliché, cliché" and I didn't write again for a decade. I think every writer probably understands the incredible insecurity at the heart of putting something out there, taking the chance that it will be hated and/or ignored, but this – well, I don't do angst, I don't do serious, I don't do sex, I don't do first person – my list could go on and on but it boils down to the fact that your reviews encourage me to push my authorial boundaries in ways that still surprise me, and I'm really grateful. I truly couldn't do it without your words pushing me onward so thank you, thank you, thank you!_


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